


Uneven Exchange

by silverr



Category: Fall of Ile-Rien - Martha Wells
Genre: Gen, Magical Accidents, Magical Artifacts, Rule 63, Temporarily a 63, Temporary Sex Change, brief mention of mild sexism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:02:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25861012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverr/pseuds/silverr
Summary: A mysterious fayre artifact in a box of odds and ends from the Coldcourt attic leads to unexpected changes for Florian and Niles.
Relationships: Florian & Breidan Niles
Comments: 6
Kudos: 11
Collections: Rule 63 Exchange 2020





	Uneven Exchange

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Serenade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serenade/gifts).



> Many thanks to **Sef** for beta.
> 
> Consider this to be set relatively early in (or just before) Book 1.

.

.

Tremaine Valiarde had arranged to have all the boxes remaining in the Coldcourt attic brought over to the Institute, and, in a moment of folly, Florian had volunteered to sort and catalogue their contents.

Labeling each box _Coldcourt Detritus_ before assigning a number, she carefully photographed the contents _in situ_ before removing and inventorying each object. As she worked she began to realize that she was lavishing far more care than the objects deserved, as most were junk that had been relegated to the attic for a reason. Most were artifact construction materials—bits of metal, scraps of wire, small empty boxes worn as soft as flannel, coils of solder, and hardened tubes of glues, paints and fluxes. The remainder was spell casting miscellany: packets of herbs that had disintegrated into dust, and jars of unidentifiable powders that had hardened into small brittle disks.

Apparently genius sorcerers never threw _anything_ away.

"So what do we have?" As always, Niles was brisk, impeccably turned out in pleated grey trousers, a crisp white shirt, and a subtly patterned vest. His blond hair was combed sleekly smooth. "Is this all of it? anything useful?"

"One box to go," Florian said. "Most of it's been junk." She pointed to the far end of the table, where she had stacked a dozen small agate cubes and several bundles of dusty, age-curled papers. "So far those are the only things that looked interesting."

Niles walked over and picked up a cube. "Ward weights," he said. "An elegant way of keeping the paper flat when spells are inscribed on rolls of parchment. More a quaint curiosity than anything else." He set the cube down. "What made you set these papers aside?"

"Because there are several annotated diagrams," Florian said, taking a cylindrical object wrapped in leather from the box. "I'm pretty sure it's Arisilde Damal's handwriting." Narrow, about a third of a meter long, the object was surprisingly heavy, although this might have been due to the iron nails that were placed in the leather like over-sized sewing pins to hold the wrapping closed. She set the object down, then began to clear a space around it.

Niles reverently examined one of the bundles of paper. "A pity the writing is so faded. I'd love to make out these annotations."

"I was thinking that maybe Caris' Restoration would make the ink dark again?" Florian said, 

"I don't know that one," he said. "Is it a distaff spell?"

Florian stopped and gave Niles a look. "Did you just say 'distaff,' Niles? Because the modern age we say 'witch-only.' "

"Noted," he said absently, not looking up from the papers.

"The spell ingredients are cardamom, vinegar, and a pinch of dried blood or rust," Florian when on, "but I'd have to look up the wording. In my copy of the secret female grimoire, of course."

"Very funny." Niles had taken an archivist's transport box from a cabinet, and was carefully arranging the bundles within it. "Considering how valuable these papers might turn out to be," he said, "it's best we turn them over to a Damal scholar for proper restoration and analysis."

"Of course." She peered at the object through an aether-glass filter, then cautiously began removing the nails.

Niles finished packing the papers, then moved next to her to watch. "That's intriguing. It's not warded?"

"No," she said, "though the nails are definitely iron. Maybe they'd run out of string and the nails were what was handy, but more likely—"

"—more likely, they were intended as a fay deterrent."

Unwrapped, the cylinder was of greenish-black stone, covered with nature motifs in deep relief. Between a stylized sun at one end and a stylized moon at the other, vines wove around depictions of erupting volcanoes and thunderstorms. Pressed into the leather next to the cylinder was a long sprig of small, almond-shaped leaves. 

Florian bent close to peer at the leather, which had dozens of faint marks scratched into it. "These are protection charm elements."

"From or against what?" Niles murmured, and eyed the dried foliage. _"Buxus sempervirens_."

"Boxwood?" Florian said. "So it's triple-protected against fay. This artifact must be something the fay would want, or want back. It was hidden at the bottom of the box, after all."

They looked at each other with brimming excitement, but then Niles said reluctantly, "Well, best wrap it up and send it to Obel or one of the other fayre experts." 

Florian carefully lifted the edge of the leather furthest from her and started to fold it down over the cylinder, but somehow this motion joggled it just enough that it began to roll toward the edge of the table.

Both she and Niles reached to catch it at the same instant—

—and then Florian was on the floor, numb and unable to move.

"What happened?" she asked. Her voice sounded strange, like a gramophone recording. Hers, but also not hers. 

Florian had a pragmatic relationship to her body; she kept it clean and fed and rested, and in return expected it to get her where she needed to go and do what she needed to do. This meant that she generally didn't pay much attention to her body unless it was demanding something, but now... now, as sensation began to prickle back into her limbs she was aware of feeling very different. She felt both denser and lighter, which was of course nonsense, but also her chest felt wrong. Missing something. She lifted her hand and confirmed what she'd already sensed, that her breasts were gone. There were also new... body masses under her skirt, which was now so loose around the waist and hips as to feel like a tweed barrel.

As she sat up she saw a petite Parscian woman.

"Who are you?" the woman asked. She was nearly swimming in what looked like the clothes Niles had been wearing, and was having to clutch the pants so as not to slide out of them as she warily edged away.

"Florian," Florian said. She noticed that she was no longer wearing her shoes: a good thing, as her feet seemed to have become much larger. 

"You're not Florian!" the Parscian said. 

The voice was different, but to Florian's ear it still had the same peevish inflection that Niles used whenever he was annoyed by nonsensical claims. Only half believing it herself, Florian said, "Despite appearances, I _am_ Florian, and… I think you're Niles." 

"Ridiculous!"

"Last Twelvemas you got sick on peppercorn wine."

"Anyone who was at that fête—"

"—and threw up in the wastebin in Gerard's office." It had been just the two of them in that room, and Florian had taken care of the mess.

The Parscian woman, who was, somehow, also Niles, stopped talking and considered this for a long moment, then reached for the edge of the table to pull himself up. "The artifact seems to have performed a simple transformation on us," he said, glancing down briefly at his breasts. He began to roll up his now comically long shirt sleeves. "This type of thing usually wears off quickly when cast by human sorcerers, but if this is a result of fayre magic, we may need a reversal spell." Sleeves done, he tightened his belt, then bent down to roll up the legs of his trousers.

Florian noted the slight tremor in his voice despite his calm matter-of-factness. "Isn't there something in Sadh-Bly about fayre transformation magic?" she asked. Watching as Niles went to the bookcase, she knew before he did that the body he was in wasn't going to be able to reach the copy of _Etheric Interactions_ on the second-to-the-top shelf, and so hurried over to reach up and hand it down. 

Her olive-skinned arm was dusted with fine black hairs, and the blurry reflection of herself she caught in the bookcase's glassed door showed dark hair. "I look Aderassi, don't I?" she asked.

Niles, who was already deep in the book's index, said, "Hm? Yes. Somewhat." He moved over to the table to put the book down, then shrugged uneasily.

"What's wrong?" Florian asked.

Niles looked up from the book's index pages with an _Are you serious?_ expression.

"Other than the obvious, I mean," Florian said. 

Niles began flipping toward the beginning of the book. "I feel very... unbalanced," he said. He found the page and scanned the passage. "Useless!" He snapped the book shut. "Nothing about reversal."

"We'll figure it out," Florian said, putting the book back on the high shelf. She crouched down to look for the cylinder. "Maybe the artifact will give us a clue. I know I grabbed the end with a sun—hm, where has it gone?" 

"It must have rolled under something when you dropped it," Niles said. 

Florian decided, in the name of friendship, not to point out that if two people were holding something, it took both of them to drop it. "Oh, I see it now; it's under the credenza. Give me something I can use to swish it out."

"Don't touch it," Niles said, handing down a ruler and a pair of heavy flameproof gloves. 

"That's what the swisher is for," Florian said. 

A few minutes and three dust bunnies later, the artifact had been coaxed out. She and Niles then re-enshrouded it and its branch of boxwood in the inscribed leather, and worked the nails back into the leather.

"If it's a transformation rather than a transposition spell, it'll reverse itself naturally, right?" Florian asked.

"We can hope so." Niles sounded grim.

As if they needed further proof that they had both been changed beyond recognition, just then there was a knock on the door and Giaren, Niles' assistant, leaned into the doorway and said to them, "Any idea where Niles is? The sorcerers' meeting's been moved up a half-hour." He then did a slight double-take at the sight of the tall Aderassi man in a tweed skirt.

Before Florian could ask, "What meeting?" Niles said, "Thank you," and Giaren hurried off.

"Weekly meeting for the sorcery staff," Niles explained. "You aren't invited because you haven't yet finished your training."

"Right," Florian said. "You'd better go."

Niles frowned slightly. "This is going to be awkward." 

"Of course it's going to be awkward," Florian said, "but they'll understand. Magical accidents happen all the time. At least you're not dead." Niles looked dubious, so Florian added, "Look, salt and pepper don't change if you put them in the opposite dispenser, do they? They're defined by their chemical composition, not by whatever word is painted on the shaker. You're still you and I'm still me, no matter what our outsides look like. We're just temporarily in different containers."

Niles nodded and rapped on the table. "Yes. True. Alright. Back shortly." He took a shuffling step toward the door, almost tripping in his now much-too-large oxfords.

Florian took mercy on him. "Before you go, could we trade shoes?" Florian asked, picking up her brown flats and holding them out. "I feel like one of Cinderella's sisters, and would rather not have to hack off any toes in order to put these on."

"Oh, of course." The trade was quickly made, and Niles nodded. "Much better. Thank you." He started to walk toward the door again, then turned. "Oh, ah, do you know what to do if you need to, you know… " He cupped his hand and made a small lifting gesture.

Florian gave an exasperated sigh. "I had four brothers," she said. "I have some familiarity with—the equipment. I'm sure I can manage. If need be I'll use a stall." Florian was mildly irritated that her cheeks were warming; they were both adults, after all. It was simply a matter of discussing anatomy in a straightforward manner. "As for you, use tissue and pat gently until everything is clean and dry."

"Right, right." Niles began to leave, then turned back to her as something new occurred to him. 

Florian knew instantly from his mildly panicked look what he was thinking. "As for the—monthly occurrence, if we assume the timer started ticking when your transformation happened, it'll be two or three weeks before it's an issue." She could feel that her cheeks were now entirely red; hopefully the Aderassi coloring was hiding it. "Now stop worrying and go to your meeting."

.

Once Niles was gone, Florian hugged herself, pacing back and forth as terror and excitement fought for control. Yes, this was a terrifying development, but she also wanted to do experiments: this transformation was an unprecedented opportunity to truly know what another person, let alone the other sex experienced! She should document the subtle differences in her vision and hearing, as well as how exhilarating it was to be so much taller.

Still, she had a job to do, and so made herself finish repacking everything except the artifact (and of course Damal's papers) into the original Coldcourt boxes. As she did, she tested her sense of smell by sniffing a few of the packets of dried herbs.

When she was done she rewarded herself by fishing out the compact from her purse and studying her transformed face. 

It was a good face, she decided. Friendly, honest. Not quite handsome, but nice-looking. Deep-set brown eyes under thick, expressive brows. Nice cheekbones, curvy lips. A dusting of moustache and beard. She might consider accepting an invitation to have a coffee with such a fellow.

And then she raised her thick, expressive brows and with a laugh told her reflection, "I'm sorry, sir, but I think it's best if I change back to myself before I fall in love with you." 

She looked thoughtfully at the artifact and wondered what would happen if she touched it again. Would she return to herself, or be transformed into yet another stranger? Or would it simply kill her? After all, fay were generally hostile to humans: a fayre artifact might be as well.

In the end, though, curiosity overruled all. She took a piece of paper, and wrote, _Dear Niles. I'm writing this because I'm going to touch the artifact again to see what happens._ She then pulled out the nails, unrolled the artifact, and tapped it with her finger.

.

Slightly less than an hour later, Niles stood in the doorway. "You look different."

"You have no idea." She slid over the note. 

Niles read it, then looked at the unwrapped cylinder. "You know better than to do something that dangerous without supervision!"

"Yes, I know, but—" 

"How many times did you use it?" Niles asked.

Florian could tell that in spite of his scalding tone he was mildly impressed with her initiative, so she saw no reason to lie. "Fifteen." She ruffled her now-curly black hair, and decided not to tell him that after the first touch had transformed her into a stern-looking, pale-eyed Bisran, she'd missed Possible Coffee Man enough that she kept touching the artifact in hopes she'd get him back. She had only stopped when she got an Aderassi face that was somewhat similar. 

_"Fifteen_ times?" Niles repeated, aghast.

"I looked different every time," she offered. "Oh, and I did some timings. The interval from touching the artifact until regaining consciousness averaged two minutes and fifty-six seconds, with a variance of plus or minus twenty-three seconds."

Niles shook his head. "Always a man?"

"Always a man."

He sighed and slid onto a stool. 

Hoping to change the subject, Florian asked, "How did your meeting go?"

"Predictably," Niles said, propping an elbow on the table and resting his chin in his palm. "They went from _'Who are you?'_ and _'Are you lost, miss?'_ to _'You can't be serious!'_ to _'Wait, what exactly do you mean when you say you're actually Breiden Niles?' "_

"Oh dear."

"I offered to prove I was myself by doing a Third-level Arcanum, but apparently muscle memory is partially resident in—"

"Muscles?"

Niles nodded, and ran his hands through his stylishly bobbed hair.

Florian asked delicately, "So you botched it?"

"No, I didn't _botch_ it," Niles snapped back. "It just wasn't up to my usual standard."

Florian understood his upset: Niles prided himself on the elegance of his casting. Florian admired it too, so much so that she always deliberately tried to emulate his intonation and gestures. "What happened after that?"

"Garou got aether-glasses, and then they all mobbed me as if I were a new species of _Lepidoptera."_

"At least you got away without being impaled with a pin and mounted to a specimen board."

Niles hung his head. "Small blessing."

"Come on now, buck up," she said, moving around the table to lay a hand on his shoulder. "We'll figure this out."

.

Six days later, the spell was still in effect.

They had, of course, made adjustments. Near the end of that first day, Florian, feeling a bit like a gawky ostrich in her tweed skirt, had suggested they could perhaps lend each other appropriate sundries and garments for the duration of the ensorcellment, and had further suggested that, instead of sending someone else to fetch a suitcase of clothes from their rooms in the Institute, they go together and do it themselves. This wasn't because Florian had any particular resistance to the idea of wearing anything of Niles'—she assumed that, in laundry as in all else, he would be fastidious—but because she wanted to give him the opportunity to pass on having to wear her sack dresses, frillier blouses, and pastel sweaters. Niles agreed, and while he was making his selection from her brown and gray ladies' trousers and her many cardigans and pullovers in muted colors, Florian took the opportunity to slip several sets of utilitarian unmentionables into the suitcase of hers that he had selected for packing. 

Issues of apparel aside, what made the situation much more bearable was that everyone at the Viller Institute took the change in stride. Florian had pinned what she jokingly called "her salt shaker label" to her shirt, a piece of paper that said _Florian looks like this at the moment,_ and after the first day Niles began to wear a similar note. By the fourth day, while there were still instances of people walking right past them, then catching themselves with an embarrassed, "Sorry, I _was_ in fact looking for you!" it seemed nearly everyone had adjusted to thinking of the tall Aderassi man as "Florian" and the short Parscian woman as "Niles."

By mutual unvoiced assent she and Niles had decided to sleep in the general guest quarters at the Institute for the duration of their transformation—Florian found it interesting that the idea of temporarily swapping rooms felt more awkwardly intimate then borrowing clothing—although the serious and immediate consequence of this was that Niles pushed himself even harder than usual. In addition to his work on the spheres, and all the meetings to discuss strategies and tactics for fighting the Gardier, he spent the remainder of his waking hours—and far too many of what Florian thought should have been his sleeping hours—either researching the sigils on the leather that had wrapped the artifact, or practicing hand movements for the spells he already knew. More than once Florian noticed him surreptitiously doing both simultaneously, and she began to worry that he'd drop dead from exhaustion before he got his body back.

The morning of the seventh day she walked in on him sitting stock still, staring at his hand.

"You didn't lose your knowledge," she said, assuming he needed reassurance. "That's the important part, isn't it? You're still a sorcerer." She didn't add that if it turned out that the transformation was permanent, over time he'd be able to rebuild the muscle memory through training.

"It's not that," he said. 

She sat down. "What is it then?" she asked. "Tell me, Brei." It felt a transgressive to address him by his first name—and a nicked version to boot—but she felt in this case it was called for.

"How do you do it?" he said. "How do you go around in the world like this?"

"Like what?"

"Being _looked at_ all the time, whilst also being treated as though you're entirely inadequate?" He turned his hand over, still staring. "It seems the dispenser _does_ matter, to some people," he said. "Even here, where everyone knows who I am. It's subtle, and I don't think they're doing it purposefully, but nevertheless the men here talk to me differently, and don't pay full attention when I speak. And out there? Walking down the street?" He shook his head. "Why do strangers feel free to act with such boorish discourtesy?" 

Ah. That. "Well, you don't look Rienish at the moment, which is likely doubling the the amount of rudeness being lobbed at you." She waited a few beats before saying, "I've accepted I can't control what other people do."

"Is that it?" he said. "You just ignore it? Swallow the slights?"

Florian shrugged, and with more bitterness than she had planned to admit to, said, "It's sometimes difficult to find a middle ground between that and punching people in rage."

He recoiled a little, and a flash of guilt shadowed over his face. "Are you treated differently, now that you look like a man? Are things easier?" 

Complete honesty would be landing a blow upon a bruise, so she said only, "In some ways, but I know better than to get too comfortable over what I know is a temporary change."

He turned his hand to grip hers. "No matter what you look like, Florian, you'll always be amazing."

"That's right, and don't forget it," she said with a smile.

.

Florian felt that the key to the reversal spell was hidden in the scratchings on the leather, and so continued to try to decode them any time Niles was out of the room.

Gerard found her a few days later. "Obel sent this," he said, handing over a large envelope. "Based on Giaren's photographs of the artifact there's no question it's fayre."

Inside the envelope was a photograph of an engraving showing a panel with suns and moons and vines and mountains and clouds. "That's nearly it," Florian said, "though ours has erupting volcanoes and thunderclouds."

"Fire coming from the earth," Gerard said, "while the storm combines wind and water."

"Elemental forces?" asked Niles from the doorway. 

"Yes." Gerard folded his arms and looked at the two of them. _"Coincidentia oppositorum._ The unity of opposites."

"How does that help us?" Florian asked.

"I think it shows the way to a reversal spell," Gerard said. "Unless you want to go to a fayre realm and ask them to lift it?"

.

"It feels good to be back in my own body again," Florian said some time later, "though I will miss being tall."

"Did Obel have any explanations as to why that artifact was in the Coldcourt attic?" Niles asked.

"No," Gerard said. "Obviously it was acquired by either Arisilde Damal or Nicholas Valiarde at some point, but as to whom they acquired it from, or for what purpose, I cannot say."

Florian, who had heard a great deal about Nicholas from Tremaine, recognized how carefully worded Gerard's statement was—especially those last three words. She had her own theories about the use to which the fayre artifact might have been put: after all, Tremaine had said more than once that her father had been a master of disguise.

"What a shame," Niles said, "to hide away something with so much potential."

"Yes," Gerard said smoothly, giving Florian a faint half-smile. "It is."

.

Niles returned Florian's suitcase the following morning. Most of the space was taken up with the clothes Niles had borrowed—now laundered, neatly folded, and wrapped in tissue—but in a corner of the case was the transport box with Arisilde Damal's papers.

"I thought that was going to be shipped off to the Damal scholars?" Florian said, eyeing the box as Niles took it from the suitcase and pushed it toward her.

"That will still happen at some point," he said, "but before then you can have a crack at restoring them, if you still want to try."

Florian touched the corner of the box with a fingertip. "Why the change?"

"You were the one to recognize their worth," Niles said quietly. "I thought you should receive full credit for the recovery, and Gerard agreed." He gave a small, embarrassed cough. "If you're willing to teach me a spell or two from that secret female grimoire you mentioned, perhaps you'd allow me to assist you?"

Florian raised her eyebrows. "Hm, I might be able to convince the Distaff Council to give you special dispensation. After all, it's proper etiquette to keep salt and pepper shakers together."

"So," Niles said, a slight flush creeping up his neck. "Cardamom, vinegar, and what else?"

"A pinch of rust or dried blood," Florian said. 

Maybe she could give up being tall after all.

.

.

The End

.

.

.

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_ posted 16 August 2020; edited 31 Aug 2020 _

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to **TexasDreamer01** and **Raine_Wynd** for being willing to rubberduck an issue with the early drafts.
> 
> A note on usage: "fay" are the magical entities themselves, while "fayre" applies any non-living object related to them.
> 
> Book 3 refers to "the dilapidated seaside hostelry at Port Rel that the Viller Institute had [...] taken over for its headquarters in Ile-Rien," which I took to mean that Niles and Florian might have had rooms there instead of elsewhere.
> 
> ... and speaking of Book 3, these books were new to me, I devoured them, picked up Death of the Necromancer and now I too have feels. If you'd like to chat about them after reveals, let me know! (Discord info is in my profile, if that works for you.)


End file.
